On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 11:05:43AM -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [ ... ] | Let me be clear about the issue again. If someone reverse engineers a | proprietary protocol and releases a decoder under GPL, whether or not a company | chooses to pursue the individual as a patent infringement issue is not the | issue being debated. | | If engineers working on the proprietary protocol have filed for patent, but to | make troubleshooting simpler want to release a decoder of the protocol, there | is a problem. The owner of a patent (or having expressed intent by filing for | it), has to release the source code for the protocol, today it has to be | GPL. This potentially can invalidate the patent. This *is* the issue.
dinesh, why do you want to make actually the protocol dissector available then ? if you don't want to disclose information about the protocol then simply make your private build and don't submit anything to the public - fine; either you want to publish or not to publish; requesting changing the licensing policy of something that was intended to the greater-good of all, just to protect something for benefit of few seems not reasonable to me; as far as i am concerned [i did just contribute a few IS-IS TLVs and BGP SAFIs - so by far i am not a major contributor] i would not concur a change of licensing terms; --- if private companies want to take advantage of open developments then they should comply to the licensing policy but don't try to change the rules, just because the product is good; sorry if my thoughts are too radical; /hannes
